


Promises You Give

by BetsyByron



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Cutesy, Discovery, Family, Ficlet, Fluff, Have a break, M/M, Parenthood, Short, Sweet, have a ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:36:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetsyByron/pseuds/BetsyByron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a child running about the MI6 headquarters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know. I had an idea, and it was cute? I so don't have time (or brains) to write anything consistent these days, what with spending all week at the office.
> 
> Anyhow, little heart-warmer for rainy days.

Sometimes when he gets back from long missions, 007 feels like he hasn’t set foot in HQ for years. It always seems like a different world, one he’s not quite part of.

When he returns from Skyfall, it seems like a new place altogether. He feels like he doesn’t know a soul there, not one of the agents and other staff members he passes looks familiar to him. Even Monneypenny appears foreign in her new position as Mallory’s secretary.

The only place he can think of going for comfort is Q-branch. Admittedly, it’s all brand new too, Quartermaster included, but the young man has proven himself more than once during the past few weeks, enough times for a lifetime actually, and James has found himself not only trusting him, but actually taking a liking to him.

He’s on his way when he hears a piercing cry, sudden and brief. It’s so unexpected it takes him a moment to realize it’s a child’s voice. A child in HQ? Driven by curiosity, he follows the sound of the second, high-pitched scream, and finds one of the girls from the front desk – he remembers heavily flirting with her, he doesn’t remember her name – holding a little girl by the hand, the latter obviously throwing a tantrum. She must be four or five years old, and looks like a porcelain doll; beautiful wide blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and a cascade of black curls – she even has a ribbon in her hair as if the little white dress wasn’t enough for this picture.

“Come on.” The secretary is begging, looking like she might cry.

The child tries to pull her hand away from the woman’s grip, and scream again – she sounds like a hawk.

“You can’t see your daddy now.” The other tries to coo. “You have to come with me.”

The little girl suddenly tries another strategy, and bites into the woman’s hand with conviction. She yelps, and lets go of the kid, who dashes off – and straight into James’s legs. Undeterred, she raises her clever little face at him.

“Who are you?” She demands.

“Who are _you_?” He throws back, amused.

“I can’t say.” She crosses her arms. “I’m a super secret agent.”

“I’m a super secret agent myself.” James plays along. “We must work for the same super secret agency.”

She giggles, and she’s adorable.

“Now _seriously_.” She says, taking a mature stance. “I’m Alba. My dad picked it, it means England.”

“It means England?” James repeats, quite sure he doesn’t remember that from his Latin classes in middle school.

“Yes.” The kid ensures. “Because of the stories with Arthur. You know, the King?”

“Yeah.” James laughs. “I know King Arthur.” And Albion, he now connects.

“I’m four.” She states, lifting five – three – four tiny fingers. “What are you?”

The secretary clears her throat, interrupting his answer.

“Uh, mister Bond?” She ventures. “Are you, hum, could you, I mean, I was supposed to take her to day-care, but if you, I mean, I have to return to my desk, and...” 

“I’ll look after her.” James nods. “She seems to like me.”

He had nothing particular to do, and a child was a breath of fresh air in this world.

“My daddy likes you.” The girl chirps defensively.

“Right.” James laughs again. “Come then, little lady. Let’s take a walk.”

She slips her hand into his, and James thinks he should have a word with her parents when they find them; she might have resisted the front-desk lady, but she is now quite willingly following a stranger, and it doesn’t seem to trigger any alarms in her.

“Where are we going, mister Bond?” She asks maliciously.

“Where do you want to go, miss Alba?” He replies.

“I want to see my daddy!”

There we go again, James thinks.

“And where is he, your daddy?”

“With computers.” She tells him proudly.

“Well perfect.” He says. “That’s where I was going.”

He hadn’t been planning to spend the day babysitting, but why not. He wants to see Q’s face when he realizes he’s actually great with children (because against all odds, he is).

Q’s face is even better – or worse? – than he expected. There is a hint of fear that Bond wouldn’t have suspected when he sees the little girl, which is explained a second later as said little girl jumps into his arms with a resounding and very happy “DADDY!”

“What.” Q splutters. “What. Alba? What are you…What…Bond?”

Now James suspects his own face to be the picture of astonishment.

“She’s yours?” He asks, quite stunned. “You’re a _dad_?”

Q’s face hardens as his arms close more tightly around his little girl, who’s playing with his glasses and strands of hair.

“What is this all about?” He asks accusingly.

“I had no idea.” James recovers his sense of humour. “Seeing that you look about nineteen.”

“I was.” Q says, and squints, like he’s surprising himself by saying this. “When I had her, I mean. But that’s beside the point.”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that.” James defends. “Someone dropped her off at reception or something, and she did not want to follow the lovely lady to day-care.”

“So you offered to babysit?” Q quirks a brow.

“I had some free time.”

“He was real nice!” Alba contributes to the conversation.

Q rolls his eyes. “Charming even the four year-olds.” He sighs. “Right, let’s take this into my office, I have to make a phone call.”

He looks angry now, not at Bond though – he can only guess it must be at the mother of his child or at whomever decided it was a good idea to drop her unannounced at the MI6 headquarters.

“Sit.” He orders Bond after he closes his office door behind the three of them.

James does, and gets an armful of Alba for his responsiveness. The little girl seems very pleased, oblivious of her father’s discontent. Q is on the phone a moment later.

“It’s me.” He says into the receiver. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

James would pretend he’s not listening to the conversation, but there’s only so much he can so when he’s sitting right there next to Q, who is trying to speak levelly – not with complete success.

“I don’t care if something came up, you’re supposed to have her for the whole week, I’m working late every bloody night. You can’t just drop her like this and…  I already told you… There are protocols, I can’t… Oh shut up, Laura!”

James almost startles. He’s not sure he had ever heard Q raise his voice. It must be rare enough that Alba squeezes her little hands into the fabric of James’s shirt. Q turns to them, one hand over the receiver, and mouths at James: “Cover her ears”.

“You are a terrible mother.” He spits as soon as James places his hands each side of the little girl’s head. “All you care about is yourself and how to best enjoy your own selfish little life. This is the last time you do something like that to us, do you hear me? I’m going to ask for full custody, and I’m going to fucking get it.”

He hangs up after that, slamming the mobile on the table for good measure.

There is a moment of silence, which Alba’s sing-song little voice breaks.

“Fucking get it.” She says.

James laughs, Q sighs.

“You had one job, Bond.”


	2. Holding Out For A Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sickeningly sweet sequel!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure this could contain more fluff ^^"

Q does not like alcohol, so he’s emptying his third cup of Earl Grey trying to wrap his head around the situation. _James Bond is putting my daughter to bed_ , he thinks. James, bloody, Bond. Of all people. Is putting my baby to bed, telling her a story so she’ll agree to sleep.

It just happened, really. Being a single dad is harder than Q realised, and Bond tonight took pity on him. Q also suspects him to adore Alba, and the feeling is certainly mutual; the little girl is still not able to shut up about the agent. It’s been two weeks now. James this and James that. She even got him to play spies and villains with her once, when Q had to work late and most of Q branch was deserted – she was the spy, of course, her light footsteps and delighted shrills of laughter echoing in the empty computer lab (as a whole it is never completely empty, of course, there always needs to be some hands on the Q-branch deck, but the all-nighter central is much more comfortable, and closer to M’s office. With a hotline to Q wherever he is.)

Q is head-deep in legal procedures about his child’s custody. He should “win” without a problem, he works for the government, has a stable income, and obviously cares a lot about Alba, but he doesn’t yet completely agree with himself about visiting rights; he knows you don’t just take a child away from their mother, or vice versa, but Laura has never been much of a mother. To be rather frank, Q has the feeling she was even _glad_ that he offered (demanded) to take Alba off her arms. He’s more concerned about the effect on his little girl. Maybe that’s projecting himself too far, but he’s not sure he’ll be able to deal with a teenage daughter when the time comes. Girls need their mothers for some stuff, don’t they? And it would be cruel to just remove the mother figure, or the sorry excuse Laura is for it, from Alba’s life altogether, wouldn’t it? Q wished he could discuss that with Alba herself, but she’s a little young to understand the full implications. She’s not missing Laura now – Q doubts she ever picked her up unless strictly necessary. But he can’t talk for five, ten, or fifteen years in the future.

“She’s asleep.”

Q startles – engrossed in his thought, he hadn’t heard James come back to the room.

“Thank you.” He smiles to the agent. After a pause, he has to ask: “How are you so good with children?”

“I have a simple mind.” James half jokes. “Like them.”

“My daughter is not simple.” Q protests with paternal pride.

“No.” The agent laughs. “But she’s four years old. Give her a bit more time to be your intellectual match.”

He helps himself to a glass of scotch – a bottle he offered Q and which has remained mainly untouched – and slumps into an armchair, acting all parts like he’s at home.

“So.” He says. “Narrate.” As Q only quirks a brow, he develops: “How did you end up with a baby girl?”

“Surely someone told you about the birds and the bees.” Q mocks.

“Seriously.” James nudges his foot from where he’s sitting, his long legs a bridge between them. “Considering you seem to despise that girl enough that you want to save your kid from her, I’m surprised there was ever an occasion to make the kid in the first place…”

“She changed.” Q says pensively. “We used to get along really well as teenagers, we met a sixteen when I was working part-time in a computer shop. Somehow there was always something wrong with her PC, and then there wasn’t really but she came to see me. We were just friends for a while, getting closer slowly, and we dated for…a year, maybe a bit more, before she got pregnant. Then she completely snapped.”

“How so?” James asks.

“I might be at fault for asking her if she was considering, well, her options. I mean, we were eighteen, and clearly not ready. From there she got into every kind of women’s rights groups. Apparently the most convincing one was ‘I have the right to keep my baby whatever you selfish man say, not give it up for adoption because she’s cute and I’m a heroin for being a mother, but I’ll still live my life as if that never happened because I’m an independent woman and fuck you all’.” Q rolls his eyes with a tired sigh, as James’s lips stretch into a smile.

“I get you.” He says. “Turns out you were readier than she was, in the end, then.”

“I loved Alba with every fibre of my being from the second I laid eyes on her.” Q reveals. “We fell out with Laura, and I didn’t see her much during the pregnancy, but her mother always liked me, bless her, and she called me from the hospital. I picked my daughter up…”

The young man breathes twice, slowly, channelling his emotion.

“I can’t describe it.” He says. “My entire universe changed focus.”

“I understand.” James says, although he can’t exactly.

“Plus they take up a lot of your time for creatures so tiny.” Q adds, closing his eyes in exhaustion.

As if answering to that comment, there is a shill cry of “DADDY!” coming from Alba’s room the next second. Q is on his feet in a blink, and by his daughter’s bed before James has had time to extract himself from the chair. Bond balances between admiring Q’s speediness and feeling bad for how his agent’s reflexes were clearly put to shame. Still he joins his Quartermaster, who is already rocking a panicky little girl in his arms.

“James.” He says softly. “Would you mind taking care of the slimy monster in the curtains?”  He asks all too naturally. Kissing his daughter on the crown of her hair, he adds: “James has slain many many monsters, don’t be scared. He’s the best secret spy there is.”

Alba’s face is still buried in her dad’s neck, but she peaks when James makes a show of slaying whatever she thinks is there. Once the threat has been dealt with, and Q is able to tuck his kid back into her bed – with many soft words and as many kisses – the two men retire quietly, with one last fond look at the little girl, who is already falling asleep again.

Back in the living room, James chuckles.

“I had never heard you utter so much nonsense in one single sentence.” He teases.

“There is no amount of nonsense I wouldn’t utter for my scared child.” Q smiles softly.

James smiles back, uncalculated, and it occurs to him he might be falling in love with this man a little bit.

“Is it true that you named her?” He asks to distract himself from the fact that he’s not sure where his life is going right now. When did he start thinking Q and Alba were such an important part of his own universe that he never wanted to lose them again? He’s been aware of the little girl’s existence for mere weeks, for Heaven’s sake.

“Yes.” Q replies. “Laura somehow thought she needed to hammer the fact that she was mine, like I would shun my responsibilities. Ironically, I think that’s when we lost her.”

James frowns. “What do you mean?”

“When I looked into Alba’s eyes and called her name for the first time, and she squeezed my finger, it was like…like we wrapped something around the two of us. Laura saw something happen that she was excluded from. Like I had just created a special link between my daughter and I, that she would never understand. Which I guess is true. I don’t think Laura ever quite figured out how to love Alba. It was natural for me, it was the easiest thing I had ever done.” He shrugs. “All mothers don’t have a mother’s instinct, obviously.”

There is half a minute of awkward silence, and James changes the subject – or goes back to it –, for which Q can only be grateful.

“So, you’re a fan of Arthurian legends?” He asks.

Surprisingly, Q blushes slightly at that.

“Always was.” He confesses embarrassingly. “When I was a kid, I kept imagining-” He stops himself, shakes his head. “Well, never mind that. Alba loves those tales. I used to tell them to her every night, before she demanded spy stories.”

“Kids have phases.” James smiles. “She’ll turn round.”

Q’s face is odd for a second, like he’s trying to decide if James said something wrong, or entirely right.

“Well.” He says eventually. “At least those are both phases I can handle. I don’t know what I’ll do if she starts asking for those glee school musical club things…”

“Oh.” James pats his shoulder – a little awkwardly maybe. “You’ve got a few more years before that.”

“Time flies faster that we think, I’m told.” Q comments sadly. “Especially with kids.”

Then suddenly he whirls around, and grabs James’s hands on an impulse.

“You know something?” He says. “I think I’d like to give Alba a little brother or sister.”

James’s jaw drops, and before he can help himself, words tumble out of his mouth:

“Are you insane?”

Q looks offended for a second. He lets go of James’s hands to fold his arms in a disapproving stance.

“Why?” He says. “It’s not great to grow up as an only child, especially with split up parents.”

James decides not to ask about the ‘Q’s childhood 101’ implications in that statement. Instead he nods in an appeasing manner.

“You’re right, sorry.” He says diplomatically. “But… How… I mean… Isn’t hard enough on you? You work long hours, you don’t particularly have time to take care of _two_ children…”

“I suppose I should get a nanny.” Q says pensively. “Or a partner.”

For some reason, he is looking at James pointedly. Then realizes he is, blushes to the root of his hair, flails, and looks at the floor.

“I’m tired.” He says to the carpet. “I shouldn’t talk about life-changing decisions at times like these.”

“Q.” James takes a step towards him.

Q takes a step back.

“You should go home.” He says. “Sorry for keeping you so late.”

“Q.” James repeats, calmly.

“Yes?”

He’s aware his voice is coming out all strangled and desperate. But the urge to step forward and into James’s arms is suddenly overwhelming. He realizes he’s had a vision of a family tonight, an actual family, for the first time in his life, and he doesn’t know how to stop it from slipping through his fingers, like a dream you remember in the first minutes you wake up, and which fades all too quickly.

“I know I’m not the best choice for a partner.” James says. “For a carer. Let alone a parent. But.”

He stops for a moment, checking Q’s reaction to judge if he should go on. The raw hope and want in the young man’s eyes is all he needs to know.

“I know we’ve only ever been friends.” James goes on. “And not even that long, and it’s odd to suggest this kind of commitment given our situation, but I’ve really liked being part of your life these past few weeks. In fact, I don’t know if I could go back to living without you. And Alba.” He adds as an afterthought.

“James.” Q breathes steadily to control his voice. “You’ve been great, you’ve been more than great, but I couldn’t ask you to-”

“I’m the one asking.” James interrupts. “I’m an orphan. The closest I had to a mother figure died a few months ago, and my childhood home burnt to the ground. The only haven I have left is you.”

This is James Bond asking for affection (admitting he needs any), Q thinks, looking at him in mild shock. This is James Bond baring his heart (admitting he has one) and offering it to you.

“Well.” Q breathes out, feeling strongly like a fourth cup of tea. “They did tell me when I took the job that MI6 would become a family to me.”

Q takes James’s hand, knitting their fingers together. And in the smile he addresses him, the agent reads _Welcome home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I think I will go and write something dark and painful.


End file.
